At CeBit Hannover Fair this week, Sun Microsystems Inc will, as expected, launch Voyager, its nomadic – or remote networkable – Sparcstation for users who need to take their workstation to different sites. The three-piece luggable weighs in at 13 lbs without a keyboard and snaps together on a desktop. Using the 60MHz microSparc that comes in three snap-together parts for the desktop. It is not designed for use on the road a la Tadpole Technology Plc or RDI Computer Corp, but for people who want to use their workstation at different sites. It is thought to be especially suited to the European and Japanese markets. Sun’s first home-grown portable technology is also the company’s first venture into flat-panel displays, infra-red communications, PCMCIA add-in devices and battery power, not to mention carrying cases. It uses the long-awaited 60MHz Fujitsu Ltd microSparc II, rated at 43 SPECint92 and 37 SPECfp92, around twice the performance of the low-end Sparcstation LX. Voyager is offered with a choice of a 14, 1,152 by 900 active matrix monochrome screen by Hosiden, a 12 colour active matrix screen by Sharp or for users that will transport just the chassis, a 17 conventional cathode ray tube. Voyager has a PCMCIA slot in place of an Sbus expansion port, which will house one Type III or two Type II devices. Sun’s thinking is that most Sbus boards used are for graphics acceleration or network expansion and Voyager has an in-built Sbus-like interface and frame buffer on a daughter board that puts TGX graphics up on the flat panels. The module can be upgraded to work with new screens as they appear, like the full-screen colour flat panel due soon. Other logic in Voyager includes a power management controller and a single-chip PCMCIA controller. Sun will offer a US Robotics Inc WorldPort modem and Sun-labelled facsimile software on a PCMCIA card immediately. Sun envisages TCP/IP networking over Point-to-Point Protocols as Voyager’s main communications mechanism. An infra-red interface for sending data to and from handheld and portable devices using Hewlett-Packard Co’s SIR or Apple Computer Inc-Sharp Corp interface protocols sits on the front of Voyager.

Not a Solaris Lite

The unit runs Solaris 2.3 edition 2, a chopped-down release that takes up just 98Mb of space compared with the usual 170Mb; but its not a Solaris Lite, the firm emphasises. SunSoft has lopped off system software that a stand-alone nomadic simply won’t ever touch and has added PCMCIA device drivers, power management tools and Roam – a mail tool developed by Sun and Stanford University that supports disconnected and remote mail use – plus support for Type 5 compact keyboards and a mechanical mouse. Other Sun users will get these features in Solaris 2.4 due this spring and from May all new Sun boxes will come with an Sbus port that will accommodate two PCMCIA devices. Voyager runs from the mains or an optional battery pack that will give two hours between charges. With from 16Mb to 80Mb RAM, 3.5 floppy, 2 Type II PCMCIA slots, infra-red, ISDN, Ethernet, 16-bit stereo, SCSI, external monitor port, parallel and serial ports and 2.5 340Mb disk – so far the biggest that can be configured – the monochrome unit is from $10,000, the colour flat panel system is $15,000 and the colour tube is from $9,000. The PCMCIA Fax/modem card is $575, a battery is $325 and carrying case $225. The aluminium frame helps dissipate up to 60W generated by the system, which has no fan. Sun says it expects to ship as many as 2,000 Voyagers a month from the off – many will go to government sites. Europe and Japan are seen as primary markets. It’s not putting the thing through any new channels – but expects Voyager to be a popular with resellers and distributors as a way of selling Sun kit which can be demonstrated at a customer site and won’t have SunExpress peddle it. Sun needs – and promises to add support for Asynchronous Transfer Mode technology which it is pushing hard on its other systems, at the moment that is strictly an Sbus-based system. There are 85 engineers working

on Voyager’s descendents, and a high-profile ad campaign begins this week.